Corps wants haulers to truck sand from spillway

Most of the water is gone from the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway after its recent opening, but there is lots of sand left, and the Army Corps of Engineers wants to sell the right to haul it off.

Brett Duke, The Times-PicayuneAt large crowd gathered to watch the Army Corps of Engineers open the Bonnet Carre Spillway in Norco, La., Monday, May 9, 2011.

“Several million cubic yards of sand and silt were deposited on government-owned lands after this year’s spillway opening,” Spillway Manager Chris Brantley, in a news release. “A significant portion of these sediments need to be removed to prepare the spillway for future flood flows.”

The corps is seeking proposals from large contractors to pay for the right to haul away the soil, but people who want to remove small amounts using hand tools won’t be charged, according to a news release from the corps.

Brantley said in the release that a priority will be to remove accumulated sand away from the 7,000 foot-long spillway control structure to prevent settling.

Corps spokeswoman Rachel Rodi said the corps will use a competitive bidding process, but also will employ “non-competitive negotiation” for sand removal that the agency has prioritized and in-kind services that benefit the spillway.

In the past, contractors have dredged and shaped fishing ponds around the 7,600 acre spillway in lieu of royalty payments for sand removal.

The spillway opened for the 10th time in its 83-year history on May 9 to divert rising water in the Mississippi River away from downstream communities, including New Orleans. The spillway diverted as much as 316,000 cubic of water per second over the 43-day opening, which ended on June 20.

The meeting with contractors is scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday, in the Spillway Project Office, 16302 River Road, Norco.